Michael Swickard's new novel about New Mexico

Wall Street JournalWASHINGTON—The largest solar storm in five years is racing toward Earth, threatening to unleash a torrent of charged particles that could disrupt power grids, GPS and airplane flights.The sun erupted Tuesday evening, and the effects should start smacking Earth between 1 a.m. and 5 a.m. EST Thursday, according to forecasters at the federal government's Space Weather Prediction Center. They say the storm, which started with a massive solar flare, is growing as it speeds outward from the sun. "It's hitting us right in the nose," said Joe Kunches, a scientist for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. He called it the sun's version of "Super Tuesday." Read More News New Mexico

From usatoday.com - Satellite images of an Iranian military facility show trucks and earth-moving vehicles at the site, indicating that crews were trying to clean it of radioactive traces possibly left by tests of a nuclear-weapon trigger, diplomats told the Associated Press on Wednesday. Two of the diplomats said the crews may be trying to erase evidence of tests of a small neutron device used to set off a nuclear explosion. A third diplomat could not confirm that but said any attempt to trigger a so-called neutron initiator at the Parchin site could only be in the context of trying to develop nuclear arms. The images, provided to the IAEA by member countries, are recent and constantly updated, said one of the diplomats. More News New Mexico

From theblaze.com -In February, The Blaze asked, “Is the Obama administration using the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to wage a war against opposition voices like the Tea Party?” The question centered upon the allegations from numerous conservative groups that the Obama administration is unfairly targeting them in an effort to stifle their speech. Now, The American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ) is stepping forward to represent nearly 20 Tea Party groups against what they believe to be a coordinated partisan attack. According to the ACLJ, a non-profit legal group that works toward “the ongoing viability of freedom and liberty in the United States and around the world,” the IRS asked questions that violate groups’ First Amendment free speech and association rights. “This appears to be a coordinated attempt to intimidate Tea Party organizations by demanding information that is outside the scope of legitimate inquiry and violates the First Amendment,” a press release quotes Jay Sekulow, Chief Counsel of the ACLJ, as saying. “These organizations have followed the law and applied for tax exempt status for their activities as Americans have done for decades.” More News New Mexico

From ktsm.com -The city of Anthony, New Mexico named a new mayor Tuesday. Arnulfo Castaneda beat out Juan Acevedo in the city's second mayoral campaign. We were at city hall as election officials counted each ballot and released the results of the race. Castaneda beat out Acevedo by 224 to 180 votes. The new mayor elect said he's ready to get to work. "I'm very happy it's been a long day and I was ready to get some results," Castaneda said. “There's many things that Anthony, New Mexico needs. We need to start working on after school projects for our youth and we need to work on our public safety needs and infrastructure." Acevedo said he will be challenging the results. “We want to do an investigation just to see if it was legal and everything was fine," Acevedo said. Acevedo said he heard of discrepancies with fraudulent ballots. A little more than 400 votes were cast in Anthony, New Mexico.

From the Sacramento Bee- In establishing their dominance over independent physicians, corporations that own hospitals frequently use a technique called "sham peer review." This is made to look like a patient-protection process called peer review, but the purpose is not to improve quality but rather to rid the hospital of an inconvenient physician, states the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS). Seven years after his hospital privileges were summarily suspended—that is, without a chance to defend himself—William K. Summers, M.D., of Albuquerque finally got a decision from the New Mexico Supreme Court in Summers v. Ardent Health Services and Lovelace Health System. More News New Mexico

From cbsnews.com -A $1.5 billion effort to link the United States' three major electricity grids has caught the attention of one of the country's largest American Indian tribes as it looks to enter the energy race. Navajo Nation President Ben Shelly has met with developers of the Tres Amigas Superstation and sees the project as an opportunity for electricity generated on the reservation — which spans parts of Arizona, New Mexico and Utah — to reach other markets. "Our future in Tres Amigas is to establish a connection to be a major energy partner and to bring a permanent stream of revenue to the nation," Shelly said in a statement. Tres Amigas would open the door to more energy development on the Navajo Nation and a broader market for selling that energy, Zah said. The tribe could also establish its own distribution contracts. "We're looking now to become actual partners and producers rather than being dependent upon outside companies giving us lease fees and royalty fees," he said. "We're looking to be a player rather than being a dependent." More News New Mexico

From google.com -A former New Mexico mayor who called President Barack Obama "the carnal manifestation of evil" and said Obama's election was part of a CIA conspiracy has been elected to his former job, according to unofficial results. The Clovis News Journal reports that former Clovis mayor David Lansford won his old job back Tuesday by defeating Mayor Gayla Brumfield with almost 63 percent of the votes. Lansford, 53, recently gained national attention after the newspaper reported his ties to a fringe religious and political group, ATLAH Media Network in New York. After threatening to withdraw from the race, Lansford later changed his mind and stayed in the race but said he felt disclosing his activities was unfair and would prompt others to label him "a whack job." Lansford participated in ATLAH's mock treason trial of Obama and wrote articles for its online publication, calling Obama an illegitimate president under the Constitution and "the carnal manifestation of evil," claiming Obama's election was part of a CIA conspiracy. More News New Mexico

NMPolitics - Senate President Pro Tem Tim Jennings apparently doesn’t understand that using government resources to campaign is never appropriate.
Using government resources to campaign is never appropriate.
Using government resources to campaign is never appropriate.
Using government resources to campaign is never appropriate.
You might get annoyed at having to read that statement three times, but I’m not repeating it for you. I’m repeating it for Senate President Pro Tem Tim Jennings, who had a staffer in his government office, which is funded by your money, send out his 2012 re-election campaign announcement on Monday.
Jennings, a Roswell Democrat, has served in the Senate since 1979, but he somehow still doesn’t get it. It’s not OK to use public money to promote your campaign. Ever.

Tim Jennings

Ever. Ever. Ever.
The e-mail came from the staffer’s @nmlegis.gov address, and was signed at the end this way:
Senator Timothy Z. Jennings
Office of the President Pro Tem
Room 105, State Capitol Building
Santa Fe, NM 87501
Phone: 986-4733
Fax: 986-4409
Government staffer. Government e-mail address. Government office. Government phone number. Government fax number. There’s no question that Jennings used public money to promote his political career. Read full column here: News New Mexico

Bloomberg - Greece’s secret loan from Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS) was a costly mistake from the start. On the day the 2001 deal was struck, the government owed the bank about 600 million euros ($793 million) more than the 2.8 billion euros it borrowed, said Spyros Papanicolaou, who took over the country’s debt-management agency in 2005.

By then, the price of the transaction, a derivative that disguised the loan and that Goldman Sachs persuaded Greece not to test with competitors, had almost doubled to 5.1 billion euros, he said.
.Papanicolaou and his predecessor, Christoforos Sardelis, revealing details for the first time of a contract that helped Greece mask its growing sovereign debt to meet European Union requirements, said the country didn’t understand what it was buying and was ill-equipped to judge the risks or costs. “The Goldman Sachs deal is a very sexy story between two sinners,” Sardelis, who oversaw the swap as head of Greece’s Public Debt Management Agency from 1999 through 2004, said in an interview. Read full story here: News New Mexico

Capitol Report New Mexico - One of the weirdest elections in the country was held in the little border town of Sunland Park on Tuesday (March 6) as a mayoral candidate who is facing charges of extortion defeated a rival who received a lapdance from a topless woman in his campaign office days before voters went to the polls.﻿

Sunland Park City Hall

﻿Mayor pro tem and city council member Daniel Salinas – the extortion guy — defeated Gerardo Hernandez – the lapdance guy — 637-553 in unofficial results Tuesday night while a third candidate — Jose Luis Hernandez, who is unemployed and whose own parents had a Salinas sign posted in their home – received 66 votes. So how is a guy facing felony charges going to do his job?
“My attorney has to change some of the bond restrictions that we have right now,” Salinas told KVIA-TV Tuesday night. “It might take a couple of weeks when I hopefully can step foot in city hall.”
But this thing may not be over for a number of reasons.
First, New Mexico law forbids anyone convicted of a felony from holding elected office and Salinas is facing charges that he tried to blackmail Gerardo Hernandez into dropping out of the race.
We’ll get to that later because there are a number of other threads to this story. Read full story here: News New Mexico

KOB TV - Gov. Susana Martinez has vetoed a proposal to shore up the financing of pensions for judges and magistrates.
The Republican governor said Tuesday the bill would require taxpayers to pay more for the retirement programs, which receive about half of their funding from court docket fees.
The bill would have increased the government's payroll pension contributions but partly offset that by shifting docket fee money to the state's main budget account, which would cover the employer's pension contributions. Read full story here: News New Mexico

As many of you know I began to alert the public about UN Agenda 21 last year and began speaking out about the threat it imposes to private property rights and our Constitutional guaranteed freedoms. Many labeled me as just another conspiracy theorist. Unfortunately, many in the community still know remarkably relative little about Agenda 21 and its implications including most of our elected officials.

Agenda 21 is a UN developed plan purportedly about saving the environment - however it is not about conservation. it’s about control. It comprises initiatives that are as insidious as they are ambitious.

Its ideology stresses that “the rights of the people are granted by the government” which is in direct conflict with the American Constitutional concept that the “rights of the people come from God and the rights of government are established by the people”. According to Agenda 21 doctrine American sovereignty is a social injustice and is therefore unsustainable.

It has been implemented, without the approval of Congress, through Presidential Executive Orders like EO12852 and EO13575 and complemented with unchecked bureaucratic agency regulatory zeal. These agency policies have the effect of law. Using the coercive Sustainable Development zoning policies the EPA, HUD, BLM and local governments’ control, regulate, or confiscate private property to force people to move into high density multi-family urban housing complexes. Read rest of column here: News New Mexico

Yesterday the Republican Party of New Mexico called on State Representative Brian Egolf (D-Santa Fe) to release his tax returns and let his Occupy friends see if he pays his "fair share" on his investment income derived from big corporations and Wall Street, or whether he pays the 15 percent Egolf's friends have slammed Republicans for.
The GOP says Egolf inherited his wealth from oil and gas corporate earnings and lives in a Santa Fe mansion and has frequently protested with the "99%" crowd.
"It's disappointing that Democrats are so determined to divide New Mexicans. But for a wealthy trust funder like Brian Egolf to act like he's part of the "Occupy Movement" is hysterical. Rep. Egolf has decided to make class warfare his signature issue, so New Mexicans deserve to see whether Brian Egolf is paying what his liberal friends define as his 'fair share' of taxes," said Republican Party of New Mexico executive director Bryan Watkins.
Watkins said Egolf preached about protecting minority voting rights, while simultaneously pushing to increase the Anglo percentage of his own district to protect himself from a Democratic primary challenge.